March 2, 2020: Day 30 – Numbers 30

It should be fairly obvious that the role of women in the Old Testament was very different from the more egalitarian structure which we have today in our society.  Women simply were not able to make decisions, or vows on their own without the approval of either their fathers or their husbands.  The only women who were able to make decisions on their own were those who were either divorced or widowed.  This chapter describes the state in which women were to be in regards to decisions.

We begin the chapter simply by stating that when a man makes an oath he is bound to it, no ifs, ands or buts.  He has to do what he promises he is going to do.  “He shall not break his word.”  But when a woman makes a pledge…, well, that’s a different story.  She isn’t bound to a pledge if she makes it and her father or her husband hears her make it and then contradicts her.  She is not bound to it.  Just in case she says something that she really hasn’t thought through, I know, not nice.

But if the husband or dad is present and she makes a vow and they don’t say anything to contradict it then it is good to go and she is good to go.  Basically silence means approval on the part of the men. These were the guidelines that Moses  gave to the leaders of Israel even while God gave Deborah the power to preside, judge, and rule the nation of Israel.  But even Deborah is described in light of who is her husband, as she is described as the wife of Lappidoth.  But you can’t get away from the fact that she was able to make decisions for the entire nation of Israel without her husband ever being mentioned.